… a Brooklyn-sized housing crisis has languished in the 617 American Indian and Alaska Native tribal areas and 526 surrounding counties where 2.5 million of this land’s first peoples live. There, Native men, women and children occupy the most severely overcrowded and rundown homes in the United States.

The 11,000 members of the Northern Arapaho in Wyoming, for example, share just 230 reservation homes. A staggering 55% are considered homeless because they’re couch surfing. In the Navajo Nation, 18,000 homes or roughly 40% of total Navajo housing stock lack electricity or running water.

In the twilight of the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimated that these forgotten communities urgently needed 68,000 new housing units – 33,000 to eliminate overcrowding and 35,000 to replace deteriorated stock. This is a number similar in scale to total new construction called for in New York’s current 10-year housing plan.

But while New York’s housing crisis has occupied headlines and led to a plan of action, the indigenous housing crisis has remained invisible. HUD’s study is the first and only in-depth report on the subject.

I could just point out that this is simply unconscionable for a fully developed country but then I would have to point out how little conscious we have shown as we have consistently screwed the native American Indians since we got here.

I could point out how easily this could be resolved compared to the ongoing seemingly unsolvable things like balancing the federal budget, climate change and national healthcare initiatives but we seem to like avoiding the solvable because it most likely seems to ‘small.’

I could even point out that while we spend incredible amounts of time discussing meaningful issues like livable wages, equal economic opportunities and helping lift people out of poverty it seems like we shouldn’t ignore what I would consider the most basic of basics for every citizen in the united states … food, water & shelter.

This is crazy to me.

I am not a bleeding heart liberal nor am I a believer in monetary restitution for past discretion but I don’t believe just because I have screwed someone in the past and got away with it I should look the other way in their time of need <thereby screwing them through avoidance>.

Well.

I actually have one word for us in this moral less stance we seem to be tacking on this issue … a native American Indian word … Majimanidoo.

It is the Chippewa Indians <or Ojibwe tribe if we want to be technically correct> for ‘evil spirit’.

It is an especially brutal word because by ‘evil spirit’ the Indian tribe means ‘someone born without a soul.’

This word embodies someone devoid of anything good.

You know what? I tend to believe Native American Indians sure could be thinking about using that word for us.

We screwed them by killing them off.

We screwed them by taking away their lands.

We screwed them by demanding they lose their culture and become … well … Christian Caucasians.

And then when we actually acknowledged we screwed them … we threw some money at them.

In Life we can all end up on some side of some pretty bad things. This surely seems like one of those bad things.

But this is fixable.

I cannot right a wrong and I cannot unscrew all the screwing … but I can certainly take some steps to insure the next generation is less screwed than the generations we gave screwed to date.

Money does not solve everything and in this case I don’t want to give anyone money … I want to give them the opportunity to be … well … not just better than their parents <which is what all parents want for their kids> but rather I want them to be better than my parents, your parents and any parents. I want to give them the opportunity to be the best version of who and what they are as a person.

That’s what gets them out of this unfucking believable screwed up situation we created by screwing them.

It seems like the purpose is to solicit donations … but I can’t imagine rapping that “…the Indian Wars never ended…” will make very many people sympathetic to what is a significantly underappreciated issue – societally & morally.

I would offer to do their marketing for free just because I believe they deserve better and the issue deserves national attention.

I imagine my issue with getting this free gig would be, if asked, I would tell them all I would do is show images throughout the history of time leading to the current situation with a voice over that said:

“we were happy … and then you came and screwed us … screwed us some more … figured out how to set up systems to ongoingly screw us … were kind enough to give us citizenship in 1924 <the last ‘minority’ to gain that … albeit we were the original Americans> … you were kind enough to give us some money not long ago to partially unscrew us … but we are still getting screwed. All we want is an opportunity to not get screwed.”

<hence the reason I will not get this gig>

Anyway.

As for now … and the native America homeless?

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What’s remarkable about Indian Country’s massive and forgotten housing crisis is that it would not exist if our government and society simply cared enough to devote adequate resources to putting roofs over the heads of people who need and deserve them. The troubling reality is that unless that roof makes someone money, we simply don’t care.

Julian Brave NoiseCat

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At some point it would be nice if we could figure out a way to stop screwing the Native American Indians because they will always be here — it is their home.

This has probably not even shown up on anyone’s radar with all that has been going on (you know…Tiger shacking up, the recession, the new Harry Potter movie).

But almost 225 years after the US Government screwed the American Indians they may actually be slightly unscrewing them.

That said … I am imagining that simply giving them their land back isn’t really an option. Therefore … giving them money seems the way the US Government has elected to address the issue. After maybe 13 years or so in the US Government legal system, it seems earlier this week some judge took the proverbial buffalo by the horns and made a decision.

Here is an overview of the restitution case: (just telling you so I can get to what I want to say):

In the Cobell v. Salazar case, funds are awarded based on the legal principle of restitution in contract law, which attempts to restore a rightful owner to his or her previous state by compensating him or her for loss, damage, or injury. All based on trusts as a legacy of an 1887 law/treaty that put Indian lands into individual trusts (wow. Even now that looks like a beautiful scam to screw them from money AND land). The restitution is set for $3.4 billion (an admitted fraction of the real value). And it only goes to living descendants (many American Indians without descendants passed on before the courts could make a decision).

Ok.

I think we can all admit we screwed them over pretty good.

Now.

To be clear. I am not a “give money to pay off bad deeds” sort of guy.

Too many things can happen to that money as it weaves its way through government dispensation groups and “restitution stewards” and things like that (Ok. So maybe I am not the most trusting guy. But we are talking about 3.4 billion so give me a break).

I imagine I may not be thinking of restitution simply in terms of limited dollars and cents. In fact, I am sure through some PhD-actuarial-voodoo-accounting people figured out exactly the value of “what we screwed them out of in today’s value” and came up with a number (and then decreased it by 90% to accommodate government administrative expenses).

Well.

I guess that is one way of doing it.

How about we attempt to take steps to right the wrong?

Set up a college scholarship trust for every American Indian descendant. If they decide to not go to college they still get the money to apply toward work & life.

How about make sure every American Indian kid has an Apple, or PC, computer and internet access in their home?

How about making sure each American Indian child has a school with great teachers to attend?

How about making sure every American Indian child has a roof to live under, clothes to wear and food to eat?

Looking backwards with restitution is tough. Do we give money to bitter adults (ok, that was a sweeping generalization to make a point) or try to fix the problem?

Lastly.

The American Indian elderly. This group has toiled through maximum ‘screwedness’ as well as they are the keepers of American Indian heritage.

They should be treated as the sage keepers of heritage and given the reward for waiting.

Does this mean send them all to Hawaii on a cruise ship? Nope. It means building appropriate housing and care for them. The elderly (not just American Indian) represent a knowledge base of learning and lore and experience that should be cherished and nurtured (and even more so within the American Indian culture).

Is what I am suggesting a practical restitution?

Heck. I doubt it.

But as a quasi-business guy I tend to look at solutions from the bottom up…what do we think is the right thing to do tactically and how much will it cost (instead of saying “hey, what is the value of this nebulous thing we have been debating for almost 2 decades?)

Smarter minds than I are slaving over this. All I can say is in the end I am fairly sure the American Indian is still going to get screwed. Just not as screwed as they were before.

But.

Maybe we should remember the wise words of… well…an American Indian.

Red Cloud, an Oglala Lakota leader who led his people against the U.S. Army and later as his people transitioned from life on the plains to the reservation,stressed that when Indian people made a decision, it should be done with the welfare of the next seven generations in mind.

Maybe we should admit this guy was smart enough to offer a solution even 225 years ago or so.

Maybe we should honor Red Cloud’s vision, and impact ‘seven generations’ with whatever monies have been deemed “restitution”.

We can make the American dream of a prosperous future for the American Indian descendants a reality.

Maybe we can unscrew a pretty screwed up situation. And maybe we can take solace in the fact that it is never too late to right a wrong.